I'm generally with Rurik here. I have my own world that's developed over the years and I've stolen a lot of ideas and would be happy to put some details behind it for others to use, but honestly I'm not going to share...at least not the overall vision, and for the same reason I really wouldn't put the effort into designing something with someone else.
Btw, I like Rurik's list, but I would actually remove the "races" part. I got into Glorantha, but in general I greatly prefer humancentric worlds. Mine has rumors of elven forests, but they're haunted, uninviting forests. (If the PCs ever get there, they find humans that are in tune with nature, live in the trees, etc. but are not genetically different from other humans.) I don't mind having other intelligent creatures around, but I've stayed with either fantasic, nonhumanoid creatures and they're usually "monsters": ie. not completely races, but individuals or very small groups.
What I really stole from Glorantha (and really from real world ideas) was the idea of having lots of unique religions, that provide magic to their believers, and everyone has some connection to that...it's just that since it's all real, praying over your blessed sword actually does make it sharper before battle, etc. In fact, I've done a lot of thinking about religions and how they, societies, and individuals all fit together and I'm trying to come up with some basic rules that link all of that.
I'm going with the basic premise that anyone who receives worship, gains power from that, so an emperor who receives worship from his subjects really does gain power in the world, and conversely can dispense that power to his worshippers how he sees fit. This is a two way street, so that if a minor god loses his worshippers he loses real power and potentially his divinity and can return to being mortal. Anyhow, I'm going off topic here, but if anyone has ideas on some reasonable way to model this I'd love to hear it.
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